Her Butterflies
by JPalmerGirl
Summary: After Garcia is shot in 'Penelope' all her secrets are coming to light. Her biggest two being Winnie and August Garcia. Who would've thought Garcia was a Mommy? Or that one of her kids was sick?
1. Chapter 1

Their Mom found Winnie's first bruise when she was two. It was about the size of a grown man's fist and it marred the freckle-less, white skin of her left hip. The blond haired, blue eyed two year old didn't bother to acknowledge it's presence as she fiddled with the runny bubbles in the bathtub. It was as if she hadn't a care in the world and at two, it was easy to suppose that she didn't. Penelope Garcia gazed silently at the injury on her daughter's hip for at least ten minutes. It was almost as if her mind had drawn a blank, suddenly deciding to give up on whatever it had been doing before hand, all thought processes were stopped as she gazed at that bruise. She'd originally tried to wash it off, as if had been caked on dirt or something of the like. But it hadn't come off and she was left sitting there, lifeless as a porcelain doll. The only reason she snapped out of it at all, was when a tiny two year old hand tugged on her sleeve, prompting her to look down and to be met with a pair of beautiful blue eyes that she had created. And a small voice, so wise for a child whispered. "Mommy, come out now? It cold."

It was as if Penelope had been stirred from her stupor then and she scooped her child out of the lukewarm bathtub water, wrapping the toddler up in a towel and gently drying her wet curls. The little girl whined when the towel flapped around her head, trying to sop up most of the moisture. Their Mom hushed her gently and soothingly, towel still running it's course as August came to stand in the doorframe of the bathroom. Augustus Garcia was eight when his Mom first found a bruise on Winnie. He'd come to the bathroom for the sole intention of needing to pee after soccer practice. That was the first time that he saw the bruise on Winnie's hip, he instantly started running through memories in his head, wondering if he'd been the one to cause her the injury. But he couldn't think of anything so he just shrugged it off. If he couldn't get in trouble for it, then it didn't really matter to him. Not then anyways. Yet when he passed his mother and sister on the way to the sink, he threw out a casual, "Does it hurt?", over one shoulder. He remained unanswered however, his mom already carrying his sister out of the room.

It was only three months later that Winnie was diagnosed. Multiple Myeloma. Cancer. Both brother and mother sat in shock after the doctor's news. August watched as his mom started to cry, tightening her grip on the toddler in her lap. But he doesn't move. He can't. It's as if his chair's been glued to the floor with the sticky words that fly from the doctor's mouth. Words like..'blood-forming marrow cells', 'blood platelet counts' and 'hyperviscosity', slip from the doctor's mouth like butter. Doesn't he realize that August has no idea what he's saying and that their mother is too busy sobbing to pay attention herself? Back then he'd thought that doctors were like superheroes in lab-coats, they weren't. Because superheroes care if you're crying, superheroes care if you want a red Popsicle or a green one...superheroes don't let your sister die.

Doctors aren't superheroes.

They put her on chemo that same day. August watched with shadowed eyes as he saw young adults, children, even babies with bald heads and tubes poking out f them like pin cushions. The littler ones were holding pink kidney basins under their arms, the same way that Winnie would hold her teddy. It made August want to vomit and he nearly did, when he saw a young boy his own age doing just that. They took his baby sister into this great big white room, and laid her down on a dentist's chair. One of the kind-faced nurses brought up a tray of needles and that's when Winnie began to howl and scream. She knew that they were going to hurt her, and their mom began to cry again as she held down the struggling toddler. August watched as they plunged the needle into her thin arm, over and over again. They were unable to find a good vein and Winnie would howl louder each time they tried. It was on the eighth try that they got the needle in. Winnie didn't make a sound as they hooked her up to a wide battery of machines and August heard the doctors begin to talk to his mom. He just caught bits and pieces, but it was enough to make his heart sink. "Portacath... Central line... tiny veins... Fever, infections, chills... Lower blood counts... hair loss... Developmental delays..." All August got from that was more questions.

'Will she go to school with normal kids?'

'Will her hair grow back?'

'Will she get better?'

'Is she gonna die?'

Finally he blurted out what he'd been thinking the entire time, since they first moment they told them that Winnie would be getting chemo and that it would kill some cells, both bad and good. "You're going to kill her...part of her. To make her better? That's not fucking right!" He didn't know what 'fuck meant exactly, but he heard some kids at school saying it and it honestly seemed like the right thing to say. He was angry and 'fuck' seemed like an angry enough word. He heard his mom gasp and turn to him, but it wasn't her that he was looking at. It was Dr. Reed who met his eyes and met his glare head-on. Finally the doctor spoke and it was after that, that he earned August's respect.

"You're right, it is."

August watched from one of those uncomfortable hospital chairs as they got Winnie ready for chemo. He watched as the doctor rattled off information to them. That she was going to have a central line implanted in her chest for future chemos. A central line is a three pronged tube that sticks out of her chest and will be the gateway for chemo drugs, other meds, saline, and blood draws. It means less needle sticks for Winnie. But for the first chemo they pumped her full of dexamethasone and ophthalmic drops before they started. Then they began giving her Daunorubicin, then Cytarabine, and finally Allopurinol. Poison after poison being pumped into the body of his tiny little sister, not yet old enough for preschool. It made August want to be sick. It took only two hours before she began to do just that, vomiting over and over in the pink basin that was thrust towards them by one of the nurses. When she wasn't puking, she was sobbing uncontrollably, their mom tried desperately to soothe her but to no avail. But then she just stopped, starting taking the pain and vomiting silently. That was when August realized what was worse.

His mother loved him. August knew that. But during those harrowing years, the line of love and annoyance got extremely blurred. She was run-down and tired...they all were. Sometimes she would snap, sometimes he would snap. But things would always end up alright. One of those snaps was when he was going to play in a soccer game when he was ten and Winnie was four. Still in her fight with cancer, she'd already been through one failed remission. August would always put himself before his sister, but that day he'd been so excited for the game that when Winnie told his mom that she didn't feel good, just an hour before the game...he'd snapped.

"Auggie, get in the car we'll have to go to the ER."

"But Mom! My game's in an hour, it's championships!"

"No buts, August! Get in the car!"

"No! It's always about her! I'm sick... I don't feel good... My tummy hurts... My ear hurts... My ass hurts! It's all about her! It's not fair!"

He'd screamed while half-way into the car. Winnie was already buckled into her car-seat, tears bubbling hot and wet in her eyes as she listened to them fight. Penelope Garcia hadn't had any sleep the night before and nearly strangled her son then and there as her eyes flashed and she growled, "Fair? You want fair?! Okay, the next time Winnie gets chemo, so can you. The next time I have to flush her central line, I'll make sure you go through something equally as painful. God, why did it have to be Winnie who got sick, if you wanna be fair! Why couldn't it have been you?!" The moment that the words left her mouth, she wanted to take them back. She watched as her stubborn ten year old began to cry, practically falling out of the car as he struggled to get away from her as fast as he could. She sagged against the steering wheel then, tears pooling in her eyes. She wondered how things went so bad so fast.

Their father had been Shane Wyeth, the underground hacker and leader of Starchamber. August had been conceived whilst they were actually together, while Winnie had come after. Shane had long ago, given up rights to both Penelope's kids. Mostly because whenever he would apply for partial custody, his files would mysteriously disappear off of the computer. Penelope loved her children more than her job, more than her friends and they would always be first. Like the day when she'd been called into work because the team needed her, she'd tossed away her phone when she found her five year old laying motionless on her butterfly decorated comforter. The little girl's face was drawn and pallid as she wheezed hoarsely. Then, as if she'd been yanked up by strings, she sat up and blood mixed with bile, spewed from her lips. Penelope screamed for August as she lunges forwards to shove a bucket into her bleeding daughter's arms and sweep her away to the car. August stands in his sister's room, long after both she and his mother have vacated it, he watched the butterflies hung on the walls like stars and he wonders if Winnie will be with butterflies when she dies.

That was the ending of her last remission.

One day when August was twelve and Winnie was six, he came home from junior high to find his Mom dancing around the kitchen. Winnie was sitting on the counter, happily clapping and kicking her legs up and down. She wasn't wearing her mask and her bald head was gleaming and uncovered. August had to stifle the urge to leap over there and force her to get down. It was hard to watch her play and tumble like a healthy child, but bleed out like a sick one. But he simply dropped his backpack on the ground and joined in the fun, twirling around the small kitchen, Winnie clasped in his skinny arms as they danced to whatever was playing on the radio. When they stilled, August finally asked what the occasion was. It was Winnie who answered, smile bright and eyes gleaming, voice packed full of that joy that little kids are so full of.

"Mommy's got a date!"

August had looked to his mother for confirmation and he was practically squealing as well as she nodded. He was truly excited for her, she deserved a break and maybe she'd find the right guy. He mock scowled and stuck up his pointer finger, wagging it playfully at her.

"Now, be back before 1am, young lady."

Winnie let out another squeal of laughter at his mocking tone and even his mom laughed too. It was the first time he'd seen her laugh in a very long time. It felt good to have caused it for once. His mom hurried towards him and started running her gentle hands through his blond curls. "Don't worry, Auggie. You'll always be my little prince." August blushed scarlet at her tone of voice and grinned under his breath. Just enough so that Winnie could see and mimic it. It was a good afternoon, he'd wished that he could save that moment where all three of them had been so happy. But then...that moment ended.

He stayed up that night, waiting for her to come home. He'd waited past midnight, curled up on the couch. Winnie had been sent and tucked into bed promptly at eight. But August had lingered, worried on behalf of his mom. It had been a long time since she went out with anybody. He'd known that it wouldn't go well...but the gunshots were something he hadn't been expected. They stunned August out of his stupor and sent him hurtling out of the apartment, hair screwed up and with only one slipper on as he bolted down the stairs. Taking them two or three at a time, hoping and praying against certainty that it had been a car backfiring or that it hadn't been her. Even though he knew it was.

When he saw her body, eagle-spread on the pavement...time seemed to stop. He threw himself towards her, screaming and staring at her hair. The blond hair that his mom had passed on to both him and Winnie, was framing her face like a golden, blood-streaked halo. Her eyes were closed and she was barely breathing. August was grasping at straws, he had no idea what to do. This was messing with the natural order of his life, he was The Protecter, Winnie was the Martyr and their Mom, she was the glue that held everything together and now she was crumpled and bleeding on the pavement. It was as if August was watching his world crumble before his eyes.

"Auggie..."

Winnie's voice stunned him out of his cloud of confusion and horror. He looked up to find the first grader staring outside, she was wearing nothing but her Dora pjs and her butterfly slippers. He instantly tried to block their mother's body from view, he refused to let Winnie see such horror, he wouldn't let it scare her. "Go Winnie! Get help!" He shrieked, trying to use his hands to stop the gush of blood from their mother's abdomen. He didn't say anything else as he struggled to stop the flow of the blood. He was so lost and scared. He felt as if the hole in his mother's stomach was the same hole that had opened up beneath him. He was so very scared. August was so relieved when the neighbor arrived, EMTs not too far behind her. They gently pushed him away from his mother's prone body, checking her stats and the like as Winnie launched her skinny frame into his blood streaked arms.

"Mommy! Mommy! Mommy, wake up! Mommy!"

August realized that Winnie was screaming but he didn't bother to hush her, to try and soothe her. It was as if the world had been flipped on its head and there was no way for August to stop it. The world was running ahead of them and August couldn't keep up. When they hook their mother up to a stretcher and wheel her inside the ambulance, she's mumbling, like she hears how desperate Winnie is to speak to her. She mumbled out her name and the like before two EMTs help August and Winnie to climb in after her. Penelope Garcia goes silent after that and Winnie buries her sweaty face, streaked with tears into August's shoulder. He wondered if the world was ending.

Maybe it already had.


	2. Chapter 2

August used to get bruises in the crooks of his elbows.

You can only get stuck in the elbow with needles so many times, always giving platelets, before it begins to scab and scar. Winnie used to need platelets a lot, especially so soon into relapse as she was, when she was four. August would wake up to the sound of muffled cries and find his sister curled up in her butterfly sheets. It honestly looked as if she'd been murdered, blood streaming in a torrent from her mouth, nose, even her rectum as she lay in bed sobbing. She needed platelets bad, her blood wouldn't clot because her counts were so low. Platelets were the only thing that August could give her and that was what he did. Sometimes they even decorated the infusion bags together, they would cover them with smiley stickers, dinosaur stickers and of course, butterfly stickers. The stupid stickers would make her smile as they were slowly dripped into her waiting veins. She didn't smile enough then. Nobody did. That was what August was thinking about as they wheeled his mother into surgery, a trail of blood following the gurney like an emergency beacon. They were left alone then and August looked down at his little sister. He studied the way that she clung to him like a baby spider-monkey, thin fingers curled into his clothes and damp face buried into the hip of his worn pj shirt. He realized with a sickeningly lurch that they were both still covered in their mother's blood and that Winnie wasn't wearing a mask.

He snatched a spare mask from the nurses station as they passed it on their way to the OR waiting area. August settled the pair of them on the couch and once he had, Winnie was out like a light. He didn't think too much of it, it was late and the treatments made her tired. He wished for a moment, that he could rest as well, but he already knew that he couldn't. He was The Protector and he had to protect. When he was in third grade, a dentist came to his class to show them how to take care of their teeth. He'd shown them pictures of a brown, rotting tooth after spending a night in a glass of Coca-Cola. As August wrapped a pair of thin arms around his sleeping baby sister, he'd never felt more like that baby tooth. Dissolving and rotting away under the clear view of others. He wondered if it was obvious just how broken he really was.

He began humming a low tune under his breath, snaking his hand up and down over Winnie's back. She was thin, too thin, he realized as his hand bounced over several curves in her back. He'd thought they were swollen bruises for a moment, it wouldn't be the first time. But no, they were the long bumpy vertebrae of her spine. Once she felt him stiffen, she gave a low whine and curled tighter into his, pressed her body into his own abdomen. The pronged tubes of her central line pressed uncomfortably into his stomach as she shifted, he wondered if he should've covered them with gauze to protect them from all Winnie's sleepy movements. He wondered if it would hurt. Dying. And if there was someway to put her to sleep before hand, so it wouldn't hurt as badly. She looks just like their mother, the very same expression in her eyes. He wondered if it would feel like losing his mother too. His hand clench tighter around her black-rimmed glasses that one of the EMTs had thrust into his hands on their mad dash to he OR. He wondered if his fingertips would smudge the lenses.

There was no cure for Multiple Myeloma, treatments yes, but no cure. For all patients the average 5-year survival rate was about 35%. Five years...Winnie made it four. August felt a surge of pride blossom in his chest. He was proud of his sister and her will to live. When she hit three, he started writing down the little things. The way that she would crinkle her nose when she laughed, the way she would sneeze three times in a row, how she could sing '99 bottles of beer on the wall' and never get tired of it, the way she'd always wanted to fly, the way she would dance with arms spread wide and up on her tiptoes as if she were trying to hug the world. His mother was angry when she found all his yellow post-it-notes, she snarled at him and asked if he'd been writing a eulogy. He'd shook his head...he was just trying to remember. How else would he remember the way she would make wishes on passing cars at night? Or how she'd talk in what-if speak? _'What if you were as tall as the Empire State Building?' 'What if there was a rainbow that you could walk on?' 'What if I wasn't sick?' _August bent and pressed a gentle kiss to her hairless brow-line as a pretty blond lady sat down across the room, along with a dark-haired and stern-faced man who began to pace in the corner.

Both people made August feel uneasy and he pressed his sister's thin form into him even tighter. Then he regretted instantly, her ribs felt as thin as matchsticks and they protruded hard into the flesh of his abdomen. It wasn't fair really, he was older than her, he was going to drive before her, going to get married before her, going to go to college before her...he was supposed to die before her. She was supposed to say goodbye to him! He quickly swiped at his eyes when he felt the tears that welled up inside of them. He had to be strong. Always so strong. How many straws can you put on a camel's back before it snaps? How long before the camel wants it too? It was about half an hour later that August began to nod off, against his will of course, but the pre-teen was spurred from his daze by the sound of a young man bursting into the waiting area. August assumed that he was with the blond lady and dark haired man as they both moved to meet him halfway.

"She's in surgery, there's no word."

"T-This is crazy..."

The brown haired young man slumped onto the couch, next to August and Winnie. He let his brown leather shoulder bag slip from his arm and clunk against the tile beneath them. August has to force the incoming scowl from his features at the loud sound. Winnie was a light sleeper and God knows she needed some rest. Why couldn't they just be quieter? As soon as the conversation dies within the three, another man joins the fray. He has dark hair and a goatee. He began to talk as well, bringing the entire conversation back to life as he reached to snag the shoulder of the stern-faced man. They looked at each other for a few seconds, an entire conversation passing through just a few heartbeats.

"What do we know?"

"The police think that it was a botched robbery."

Another woman followed the Italian in and August began to get annoyed. They were practically yelling to one another and Winnie was beginning to stir in the confines of his thin arms. He began to hum softly under his breath and rub little circles into her hand as soothingly as possible. Her skin there was tightened and thickened from graft-versus-host disease, it made his heart squeeze tightly in his chest. Her light blue, starchy surgical mask crumpled uncomfortably against the bare skin of his arm and he had to resist the urge to pry it off. He remembered when she was four years old and had been trying to ride on the back of his bike as they flew down a hill. He'd felt her arms wrap around his waist, her mask press into the back of his neck. Then the bike had flipped, hit a crack in the road. In the seconds before August flipped over the handlebars, he shoved Winnie off and into the soft grass. Only giving her a front-row seat as his face smashed into the concrete and the bike fell on top of him. She'd run over as fast as he could, only for August to try and smile at her reassuringly. But that only caused her to scream for his mouth was covered and streaked with blood. He'd chipped a baby front tooth. As he thought about it, his tongue moved over the familiar groves of the tooth. Only for his attention to be stolen again by the stern-faced man and Italian as they spoke to one another.

"I talked to the paramedics who brought her in, it doesn't look good."

August stiffened, were they waiting for his mother as well? As far as he could tell, there was only one OR through those double-doors. Were these friends from work or something, Mom never did like to talk about her work. August was spurned from his thoughts when he felt a small hand tug on his arm, his eyes fell to his lap where his baby sister was looking at him with sleepy blue eyes. "Auggie, I have to go to the bathroom."

August nodded and helped her slide down to the floor, both her bare feet and his padded silently together, as if they were walking on a sandy beach instead of freezing tile. August shouldered them past the herd of people who were congesting the hallway. Then he stopped, tugging Winnie to a stop with him. She scowled unpleasantly for a moment, but trusted her big brother whole-heartedly as she waited. He was looking up at the stern-faced man and the Italian whom were the closest to him.

"Are you waiting for Penelope Garcia?"

When Winnie went to her first day of kindergarten, she went bald. She wore a lovely little dress that managed to cover up all her tubes and scars, August thought that she looked rather pretty. But she'd come home from morning kindergarten, with tears coursing down her cheeks. Out of everything that their mom was doing to comfort her, nothing was working. She wouldn't tell either of them what was wrong. Not until much later, when August finally managed to pry the answer out of her. "They all stared at me, Auggie. Like I was a freak. They made fun of me." Then Winnie began to cry, sobbing and wailing as she clutched into him tightly. Then August gently pressed a kiss to her forehead and tugged her into the bathroom. He pulled out an old mechanical razor that their father left behind and plugged it in, using it to shave a long strip of fuzzy blond hair from his head. Letting it fall from his head and make a small blizzard around his feet. Winnie gasped, letting a pair of small pale hands cover her mouth. "August!"

"What, it's just hair. It's not like it matters. Wanna help?"

She shook her head at first, still gaping at the forest of blond hair that already rested around his feet. But he made to pass the razor into her hands, she took it with trembling hands and looked up at August for permission.

"Come on, I wanna be pretty too."

A smile broke out on her face then and she turned on the archaic razor, cutting a large swath down the right side of his scalp. The hair seemed to flood the bathroom like snow and both siblings began to laugh, nearly sneezing as the hair covered their lithe bodies. Finally, when all his hair was gone, residing now under their feet. Their mother came into the bathroom. She stood there for a moment, frozen in shock, but then she smiled. It was such a glowing smile that it made August smile wider as well. Penelope Garcia leaned over and smoothed his bald scalp gently. "You look adorable, August." She looked at both her child, matching bald heads bent together. She'd never seen anything more beautiful in her life.

The Italian and the stern-faced man both looked at August in surprise, eyes flickering over Winnie who was squirming with one hand clasped in his left. "Yes, we are. How do you know that?" The stern-faced man spoke, eyes still partially widened in surprise. August scowled, his voice monotone as he answered, softly. "We're waiting for her too." Winnie tugged at his hand even harder, "Auggie, please! I gotta pee!"

"Why are you waiting for her?" That was the brown-haired young man, he'd returned from making an unanswered call to somebody named Morgan. The young man peered at both siblings for a moment, taking in the familiar hair, eyes and nose. Then he seemed to go pallid, reaching over to grasp the arm of the couch in support. Both the blond lady and the dark haired woman looked at him in surprise.

"Reid, are you okay? What's the matter?"

"Garcia's their mother."

"What, how do you know?!" The dark haired woman practically gasped, she looked around for the children, but Winnie had finally managed to drag August towards the bathroom located down the hall. He sent furtive looks behind him every few moments. But not really caring if they knew where they were or not.


End file.
